The case involves an undercover officer who entered a suspect’s home under false pretenses (claiming to be an interested buyer of contraband bald eagle feathers and pelts), carrying a concealed video camera. The footage from that camera was used as evidence in the suspect’s prosecution.

The suspect claimed that the method for gathering the footage constituted a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights and that the evidence should have been suppressed. The court ruled that because what was revealed to the undercover officer during his visit was in plain sight,

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops held their annual November meeting this past week, and coming a week after the elections, it had to have been rough. The bishops lost four out of four state votes on marriage equality, and the prospects for rolling back the Affordable Care Act and advancing their other policy prescriptions dimmed greatly with Obama’s reelection and the failure of the GOP to take control of the Senate. It was not a good week for the bishops, and like all people in politics who came out on the short end of things, a little stock taking was in order. What went wrong, and how can we do better next time?

Their answer: bad messaging. “If only we were better at explaining things . . .” Right. And Todd Akin lost not because he was a man firmly on a mission to return us to the 18th century, but because he was inarticulate.

News flash for the USCCB: It’s not that the voters don’t understand you; it’s that they don’t agree with you.

Trans people have a stark choice.

Once again, affirmative action is on trial in the Supreme Court. The pending case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, challenges U.T. Austin’s admissions policy, which aims to bring in more students of color by considering race among other factors. The case is driven by the misplaced racial anxieties provoked by affirmative action, but it might offer a platform for truly grappling with the nature of institutional racism and the oft-politicized, seldom-understood concept of “equal opportunity” in schools and workplaces.

Possessing the privilege in this country that comes with owning a penis, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tells women of America that ensuring pay equity is just a legal headache.

Documents and surveillance video obtained by the Massachusetts chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) show the Boston Police Department (BPD) and the city’s Homeland Security fusion center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), have been spying on peace groups and local leaders. The documents show law enforcement has monitored demonstrations, tracked beliefs and “internal dynamics” of activist groups and labeled this information in ways that would make it seem like they were tracking criminal activity.

Lest any of you (and I doubt there are any) think that the new Supreme Court term would denote a newer less conservative John Roberts, let yesterday dissuade you.

“Registered domestic partners in Washington State already have legal equality with married couples, and they possess all the legal rights and benefits of marriage.” This is the outright lie being promoted by the Roman Catholic bishops of Washington state and Preserve Marriage Washington, opponents of Referendum 74.

When Pope Benedict announced he was appointing Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone to be the new archbishop of San Francisco, it generated a lot of reaction in both the religious and secular media. RC churchwatcher Rocco Palma said the appointment was “either the most the most courageously bold — or stunningly brazen — American appointment in the seven-year reign of Pope Benedict XVI.”

After what happened Thursday at Cordileone’s installation, put me down for “stunningly brazen.”

Marc Andrus, the Episcopal bishop whose territory covers the Bay Area, was left standing in the basement instead of being escorted with other ecumenical guests into Cordileone’s installation service. Why? Maybe because Andrus had the temerity to publicly repeat his objections to Cordileone’s efforts to pass Proposition 8 three days before the installation.

It was a stunningly brazen, juvenile snub, from one of the most prominent political actors in the religious sphere that is pushing against LGBT equality, both inside and outside the Catholic church.

A scathing report released days ago by a Senate subcommittee concluded Department of Homeland Security fusion centers at the state and local level had not “produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts.” It also found “DHS-assigned detailees” have “forwarded ‘intelligence’ of uneven quality—oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections.”

The findings have garnered some necessary attention by showing, as Julian Sanchez wrote, that the United States’ “broken panopticon” is “expensive and useless.” The fusion centers were foisted upon Americans as a necessity to keep the country secure. The violations of privacy, however, have not benefited the safety of Americans.